London aims to be global leader in green data centres

To address the challenge, Khan will deliver a whole-city partnership approach by bringing together boroughs, energy providers, innovative companies, developers and universities. In the coming weeks, a data centre development roundtable will be hosted at City Hall to progress this work. The mayor supports urgent action from Government to address the increasing connection queue because London is at the centre of the UK’s grid connections challenge, given its position as the primary hub for data centre development in Europe.

Khan said he wants to go further, positioning the capital as a real-world testbed for greener data centre solutions, where new approaches to energy efficiency, energy generation, heat reuse, and smarter infrastructure can be developed and scaled. The mayor’s position is clear: London intends not simply to adapt to this technological shift, but to shape and lead it – responsibly, sustainably and in a way that protects our climate and benefits our communities.

London is already beginning to demonstrate what this could look like in practice. At Old Oak and Park Royal, the Mayoral Development Corporation, the Open heat network will use waste heat from data centres to provide low‑carbon heat to homes and businesses, showing how digital infrastructure can be better integrated into the city’s wider energy system.

New data centre policy

The mayor is already taking first steps of translating his ambition into action through his next London Plan, which will include a new data centre policy that will set out plans to address the significant environmental impacts of data centres. The draft London Plan, due to be published this summer, will take a strategic approach to major energy users such as data centres, so that their growth is aligned with, not at the expense of, London’s housing ambitions. This will help steer and shape data centre development to mitigate their environmental impacts.

The recently launched London Infrastructure framework is part of the mayor’s wider whole-city partnership approach to managing infrastructure challenges across the capital. Through this strategic framework, the mayor is taking a coordinated, long-term approach to ensuring the capital’s energy, transport and digital infrastructure can keep pace with rising demand. The framework identifies increasing electricity capacity and resilience as a top priority, with major projects helping to expand the network and support new homes, low carbon transport and growing digital demand.

“The new study highlights both the scale of opportunity and the complexity of managing data centre growth”

Sadiq is take taking a holistic approach to managing all the impacts of AI. This extends beyond data centres to the wider ecosystem of AI infrastructure, including compute, cloud and data systems that underpin AI applications. All of the initial investments made by the Government’s Sovereign AI Fund have been in London‑based firms, highlighting the capital’s leading role in AI innovation and infrastructure.

Khan added: “The energy requirements of data centres are colossal, so delivering their expansion at pace alongside London’s other infrastructure needs will require more coordinated planning. Closer partnership between the private and public sector, and across all levels of Government, will be vital.

“That is why I am committed to leading a whole-city partnership approach, shaped around climate, resilience and responsible AI, as we work together to build a better, more prosperous London for everyone.”